and sometimes they teach me

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Usually I dismiss the kids from my outside classroom door. Parents or older siblings come to the room to pick them up. When I get down to just two or three we go to the front of the school and wait. Yesterday, I had a couple of late pickups so we were waiting out front. The two of them got it into their head that they were going to sit on my feet. I kept moving my feet out-of-the-way at the last minute. They were laughing and rolling around. Finally I let them actually sit on my feet. The little girl sits, leans back against my leg, puts her hands behind her head, looks up at the sun and says, “It’s a beautiful day at the beach.” and just sits there likes she’s sunning herself. And she had her shades on.

The other day I was picking up my kids from lunch and I still had an unfinished can of soda in my hand. One of my kids asked me if it was beer. Understanding that they don’t know or understand the ramifications of a teacher openly consuming alchohol on the job, I never- the-less was quick to point out that, “No, it’s not beer, I don’t drink beer.” The student replied, “Well, my mom does……”

I have this standing thing I tell parent’s. “I’ll make a deal with you, I won’t believe half the things your child says happens at home, if you won’t believe half the things they say happen at school.” But that’s not REALLY true, I tend to believe most of what they tell me goes on at home. And often, the parents would be mortified to hear some of it……….

Our reading program has this unit on careers, so we’ve been reading books with different careers in them. Today the book wanted them to guess what you called people who did different things. One page had a picture of an artist drawing a picture, so I asked, “What do you call this person?”

The first answer I got back was, “A picturnarian……” Presumably that would be something like a veterinarian….. Only they draw and don’t fix animals.

There was also a few pictures of women in jobs like airline pilot, or mechanic. I asked the class if girls could do those kinds of jobs. Some, mostly boys, said, “No!”

I use a lot of technology in my classroom. I have a sound system with an Ipod dock, an Ipod, a scanner, an Elmo (document camera), a projector, six computers for student use two laser printers, and a Smartboard (interactive whiteboard). I use a laptop computer and the Elmo with the projector. One of the printers, the laptop, the scanner, the sound system and Ipod, and the projector are my own personal items. The projector has been giving me problems recently. I dropped it a couple of years ago and it has worked OK ever since, but recently it has developed some issues.

Technology is only good when it works. It can be very frustrating when you have to reboot the computer several times, unplug and plug the projector back in several times and turn it off and on several time all just to be able to do the calendar. Meanwhile, 30 little bodies get more and more restless. I was fiddling with it the other day and muttering under my breath and the kids wanted to know what I was saying, (I didn’t tell them what I WANTED to say but) told them that the projector was just having problems because it was getting old.

Without missing a beat, “You mean like you teacher?” And they wonder why I hate (not really) them……………………. :)

With the heat on in our rooms at school, a lot of my kids have been complaining about headaches. I think their sinuses are getting dried out. This morning they were making it really hard to teach. Their heads hurt, their tummies hurt, their noses hurt, hang nails, teeth hurt, etc. etc. etc.

And there’s not much I can do about it. If they don’t have a fever, the nurse just sends them back to class. I have my own digital thermometer so I can pre-check them before sending them down. This late in the year, the kids know I’m telling the truth when I say I can’t do anything about it, because I’ve sent kids down to the health office enough times before, and they just send them back.

Today, after this one little kid came up to me for the third time complaining about her head hurting and me telling her I couldn’t do anything about it, (I mean sure, if they are in significant pain we will call home, but generally I can tell if they are in real distress or not) anyway, I pulled her close, gave her a quick hug and said, ” Aww, poor baby, now go sit down and get to work.” This other kid comes right up and says HER head hurts, I give her a quick hug, and tell HER to go get to work, then this boy comes up…..I give him a quick hug.

When I look up, there is a line of 10 kids waiting for their turn for a hug, and some kids having just got their hug, are getting back in line……

Our reading program had us read The Three Little Pigs today. We were reading, and one part referred to the first two little pigs as being lazy. I asked the kids if they knew what that meant? Somebody said, “like a lazy bones.” And this one little boy said, “Like my mom.”

I said, “Well, a lazy bones just lies around all day and does nothing…..” He just nodded and said, “Yep, that’s my mom……..”

It’s probably the truth. This is the same little boy that came to school two days ago with his shoes all wet and his pants legs wet half way to his knees. I sent him to the health office, to get something dry, ( it is more or less winter out there after all). Turns out that his shoes were dirty that morning, and he wanted to look good. His mom and step-dad couldn’t bother to get out of bed to help him, so he climbed up in the kitchen sink and washed them, on his feet of course.